Daycare Update

Carey’s been attending daycare for almost a full month now. He still cries when we drop him off but I think it’s just out of habit or depending on who is there to take care of him. The teachers rotate and they take turns taking care of the little ones. So now in the mornings when we walk in, he’ll give big smiles to all the teachers except one and he just cries and cries and cries when he sees her. 😦 That kinda makes me wonder.

I know my son is accident prone being that both parents are extremely accident prone. Logically, the son of 2 incredibly clumsy people would also be incredibly clumsy. I’ve witnessed him walking into walls (Mom’s fault), falling over (Dad’s fault) and getting limbs and digits stuck and caught (both parents’ fault). Every day, I come home and see him with a new cut or bruise or something. I kinda wonder if he’s doing it to himself or if it’s being done to him by other kids and such. 😦 I’m not implying that maybe the teachers are doing that to him or what, but it just is kinda worrisome. It could also be a real possibility that my son is just really accident-prone. And fearless, really really fearless.

Other than that, I think daycare has been a really good idea. Before, I wanted to enroll him at the age of 3 but several reasons made us enroll him earlier. Since he began daycare, he’s been talking a lot more than before. I know staying home with my mom didn’t do him any good with her less-than-stellar English. I’m sure the both of them got bored of each other and my mom would let him nap for four hours straight!!! And because his schedule is pretty much of a vampire, he would not sleep at night which created chaos and lack of sleep for his parents.

He’s given structure with daycare. Now when he eats snacks and meals at home, he will climb up onto the kitchen chair and sit there and eat. At daycare, they make all the kids sit at the toddler table and eat their food. Yay! I no longer have a wild, grazing animal for a son at mealtimes. 🙂 Only until he’s really done eating. People have always told me that your kid will stop eating when they start daycare and get really skinny due to the stress. Carey didn’t eat for the first week but now he eats everything plus the snacks I pack for him. I gave up trying to figure out toddler friendly foods to bring for lunch and just enrolled him in the hot lunch program which costs $3 a day for a lunch entree (pizza, chicken nuggets and McDonald’s on the days he’s there), juice and a snack.

Before daycare, Carey was still on a bottle for milk. 😦 I know, we are bad parents. It was just so difficult to switch him over but it was really time since he was chewing holes thru the bottle nipples and I refused to buy more. He was off the pacifier at the time but not off the bottle. We switched him over at the teacher’s urging, especially since all the kids around his age were drinking milk from a cup, either straw or sippy, and that’s kinda embarrassing. Haha. So now Carey drinks his milk from a straw cup at school. I swear, I think I’ve bought every brand of sippy and straw cup out there.

We started out with two of these. I gave Carey water in these cups since he didn’t like juice particularly. I did not like these cups that much. Warm milk came out of it and they weren’t spill-free. Carey tended to play with these instead of drink from these and just from a few minutes of rolling around on the floor, the liquid that was in them, was out on the floor. Very messy and not very recommended. On top of that, the lid part that had the straw also got moldy. It’s kinda gross. About $6.99 each on Amazon.

I actually preferred these over the Munchkin ones. I like the feature of folding up the straw if not being used to protect it from germs and stuff. Warm liquids tend to come up out of it but a little bit. All in all, I felt this was a good overall product that didn’t spill and Carey drank water and juice out of this. These are actually the cups he brings to daycare. One filled with milk and the other filled with either water or juice. Carey tends to chew on his straw (what kid doesn’t?) and the straw are replaceable. Sometimes if I think the bottom part of the straw is too gross, cuz sometimes they get moldy and stained, I just cut off the same length on a regular disposable straw and the cup still works. On the link, it’s about $19.99 for two cups but I could have sworn I got them cheaper than that.

This is pretty much BornFree’s version of the Playtex Twist N Click. We like this cup very much. It’s bigger so it holds more ounces for big drinkers, like my son. I’ve seen Carey slurp up OJ and apple juice from this thing. It’s virtually leak proof and spill proof. A little dribbles out when Carey will turn it upside down and try to spill everything out but not a significant amount. It also has a cover that will hide the straw when it’s not in use. I likey! Runs about $12.99 on Amazon.

I got this based on the reviews on Amazon and plus, it’s a little over $5 in change from Amazon. I haven’t really tried this with water or juice yet but Meanie tried giving Carey warm milk in this but it leaked warm liquids. This got stellar reviews from customers all over the place so I’m thinking the warm liquid was the culprit. But I like the style of it. The cup seems sturdy and I like how the straw isn’t chewable. It’s a hard straw so there should be no holes in the straw and no need to replace them!

I got this cup in the beginning because it seemingly had good reviews. It’s good for beginners and the only thing I liked was the cover for the straw when not in use. The material is kinda foamy and when Carey was using this, he was in the chewing stage. He actually bit off pieces of the cup and probably ingested some of it before I took it away. I like the two handles but there are plenty of other cups with 2 handles for beginners. Runs about $6.99 on Amazon.

I think those are all the straw cups I have. Now on to sippy/spout cups. Hah.

Someone suggested this to me after I said I had difficulty switching Carey over to sippy cups from the bottle. In the beginning, there was no luck and Carey refused to drink milk. But practice makes perfect. Today, he sucks down his milk as fast as he did with bottles with this cup. The milk comes out faster than the bottle but not too fast. My son doesn’t like it when his fluids are coming really fast at him and it took some getting used to. I like how there are two handles and at first the liquid wasn’t really coming out so I took a steak knife and widened the slits a little more. Carey uses this cup in the morning and at night and each time he drinks all of his milk in less than 5 minutes. This runs for about $9.97 from Amazon.

There’s also a BornFree Drinking cup which is essentially the same cup but with a different (and faster) sippy spout and holds more ounces. Carey doesn’t like it when his drinks are coming out too fast so I use this cup to hold more ounces and just swap out the spout with the training cup tips. I love how the bottles are still usable and just swapping out the spouts. No need to buy a whole another set of cups!! This runs for about the same price or maybe less from Amazon.

We went through a ton of sippy cups. I have two sets of Take & Toss cups sippy cups which are very cute but they’re not spill-proof, which kinda sucks for us cuz Carey likes to roll his cups around on the floor. Also the spouts lets the liquid come out super fast and he doesn’t like choking on his drinks. I also have a set of Take & Toss straw cups. Again, they are not spill-proof and I have to watch him very carefully while drinking from these cuz from time to time, he likes to hold them upside down to see what will happen, much to my dismay. 😦 He can drink from them just fine but it’s the non-spill proof that I’m not too keen on.

This was one of the cups I bought long before Carey was ready for sippy cups. I thought it looked pretty nifty and I got it at the local Duane Reade (drugstore) in Manhattan. It wasn’t cheap, more than $10, but I’ll try it anyway. Carey tried this cup several times only to be frustrated because he would suck on it like a bottle or a straw and nothing would come out. I even made the holes a little bigger to see if that would do the trick, but nope. More frustration and lashing out. In the end, whenenver Carey saw this cup, he would just throw it on the ground and have a tantrum. Can you imagine my puzzlement? So I, myself, tried this cup. This cup is so incredibly difficult to use! Who the hell is Dr. Weil?? Your cups suck!!! Who in the world will have to chew down on the spout and suck at the same time? Do you know how hard that is?? I tried the cup how I would regularly would use a straw or a spout but nope, absolutely nothing came out. Just this spout barrier from my drink. Now I totally understand Carey’s frustration. Lesson of story: Don’t buy pretty things because it probably won’t work at all.

So yeah, that’s my take on sippy and straw cups. I told you I could have my own sippy/straw cup store. LOL

My only advice: When you try to wean your kid off of bottles, just get rid of the bottles completely and no backing out. My mom said lotsa times that she wanted to go back on the bottle just so Carey can drink his milk. When she said that, I went to hide the bottles and put them away and now Carey is drinking just fine out of his cups.

I should blog more often so my blogs don’t turn out into thesis’es (thesi?)

Makes one wonder if that teacher is evil!! I like reading your reviews on the sippy / straw cups. Martin’s adorable he thinks that the baby upon reaching a certain age should start drinking from a cup ..the other time he was suggesting to save cost to buy cloth diapers. I stared at him and said, ‘What you gonna agree with the hippie couple to save the earth? if you want to use those diapers, fine ..go but you wash them all up…i have no time to wash those unless im blessed with Dr Octopus genes!’ Call me silly but I actually like all these cups you posted here hehehehe feel like getting one for myself LOL

I keep on hearing about my young nephews and nieces getting glasses already. I hope he doesn’t need glasses. He’s only 2! I haven’t gotten his eyes checked out yet but I should. His dr has checked them and he says his vision is ok but I guess I should go to a specialist. But I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t see these things, I think he’s just really clumsy. I regularly walk into walls all the time. =X It’s my fault.